I suppose that in the grand scheme of things it’s just a drop in the bucket, but I can’t believe that today marks our 7 month wedding anniversary!

Source: Jesse Leake Photography

Time has just flown by and although the past 7 months have been chock full of activity, I mostly feel like our wedding just happened. Maybe it’s the 4 beautiful weddings we’ve been to since our own, or the 2 that we have yet to attend this year…all of which I’m able to appreciate that much more after planning a wedding of our own!

Seven months, and yet there are so many wedding-related things we have yet to do! Our thank you cards, for one thing (gulp…we’re uh…borrowing from the 1-year-from-wedding-date gift guideline — although it seems Emily Post begs to differ on that rule); sorting through and ordering prints of our photos, for another. And, posting photos of all the handmade items in our wedding, like my veil and gown! Our one-of-a-kind orchid and wheatgrass centerpieces! Clara’s cupcakes! Jenn’s slideshow production! My bouquet! So many things to do…

But for now, I’m just happy swooning with happy memories as I listen to the song we chose for the bride & groom entrance at our UC Berkeley Faculty Club reception — Lovely Day by Bill Withers.

Come on sing along! You know you want to!

When I wake up in the morning, love
And the sunlight hurts my eyes
And something without warning, love
Bears heavy on my mind

Then I look at you
And the world’s alright with me
Just one look at you
And I know it’s gonna be
A lovely day
… lovely day, lovely day, lovely day …

When the day that lies ahead of me
Seems impossible to face
When someone else instead of me
Always seems to know the way

Then I look at you
And the world’s alright with me
Just one look at you
And I know it’s gonna be
A lovely day…..

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• Hard core lip balm labeler

I thought I ought to end my day with a post of this photo, which I came across today whilst gathering lip balm-making photos for a collection of tutorials that Jenn and I are putting together for our “special project”.

This scene here was just a few nights before our wedding, and this is the groom looking fierce (or is it mad? naw I think it’s fierce) while applying our handmade labels to half of the 200 tubes we produced.

We both had some sleepless nights over this project, but in the end it was so worth it. What’s best is when, months after the wedding, we’re hanging with our friends and they bust out one of the wedding lip balms still going strong seven months after our big event. Some are partial to Jimmy’s Cool Cucumber Melon flavor, while others enjoy my Hot Chocolate Mint concoction. Aah the memories!

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• 7 months!

Wow, try saying that five times fast. I’m THRILLED and delighted to have gotten accepted into this year’s Bazaar Bizarre craft fair at the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park!!!

I’m so ready to start dreaming up some new bags/pouches/wristlets and of course keep whipping up those Big Lugs! Looks like I’ll be busting out that craft fair production schedule again, woohoo!

Thanks Bazaar Bizarre team!

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• My craft fair production schedule
• A knucklebuster to call my own

I made a pair of curtains to hide the mess of fun but unattractive pile of board games we’ve got lying around.  Here’s a little tutorial so that you too can disguise the clutter while simultaneously bringing color and texture to your room! This how-to is dedicated to Liao, whose mind surely will be blown away by the sheer ingenuity of this clever storage solution.

Game shelf - BEFORE

Game shelf - AFTER

Materials:

• Adjustable spring tension rod
• 2 pieces of mid-to heavyweight fabric (see below for measurements)
• 2 strips of flat 1″ horsehair braid (optional - elastic can be used as well)
• Matching thread

Steps:

1) Take shelf and rod measurements, and cut your fabric
Measure the inside dimensions of your shelf to determine the finished measurements of your curtains. Also measure the diameter of your curtain rod to determine the height of your casing (the little channel that you’ll pass the curtain rod through). Allowing an extra 1/4″ or so to avoid any problems sliding the curtain onto the rod.

My shelf was 32″ wide x 14.5″ high, and the diameter + allowance of my rod was 2.25″. I wanted two panels, so I split the width measurement in half and added seam allowances as follows: 1.75″ at the top, 1″ at the bottom, and 1/2″ on each side. So, I ended up cutting 2 pieces of fabric measuring 16.75″w x 17.5″h each.

The horsehair braid should be cut to the size of the finished width, so I cut two 16″ pieces.

2) Turn under and press seam allowances
Starting with the left and ride sides, fold the fabric in by 1/4″ and iron flat. Fold the same seam another 1/4″ to hide the unfinished edge, and iron again.

Moving on to the top, fold the top under by a 1/2″ and press. Fold it again by 1.25″ and press. The Dritz hem gauge is pretty nifty here for measuring a consistent seam/hem/casing. You’ll be unfolding the top to stitch the side seams, but you can temporarily pin or binder clip this all in place if you want. (Note: Skip the binder clip or substitute for a wooden clothespin if your fabric is fragile.)

3) Stitch the side seams
Unfold the top one time (i.e. so that it’s only folded once instead of twice). Sew along one side edge, then the other. I sew with the right side up since the top side of the seam usually looks a little cleaner than the bottom…although if your stitches are crooked like mine are for whatever reason, it doesn’t really matter!

4) Make the curtain rod casing
Fold the top back under along the crease you pressed in Step 2, and stitch the casing closed. Be sure to stitch close to the bottom edge of the casing so there’s enough room for your rod to slide in. Woops, I forgot to take a picture of that part!

5) Hem the bottom edge of the curtain
I got lazy with all the turning and pressing, so I used my machine’s overlock stitch (aha! good thing I kept the Janome 4900QC!) to finish the raw edge. If you don’t have this stitch/foot, you can just use a zig zag stitch or simply fold and press, fold and press.

Optionally, place your strip of horsehair braid along the bottom edge of your curtain and fold the fabric in by 1″ (so that it covers the horsehair braid entirely). Press, and stitch along the entire bottom hem. Horsehair braid is used in things like wedding gowns to help keep the shape of hem and make the skirt hang better. I had some leftover from my sewing my own wedding gown and figured I’d try to use some of it up! Apparently, elastic serves a similar purpose though maybe not in wedding gowns. I’ve seen elastic sewn into IKEA shower curtains, for example.

6) Check your work
Slide the rod into the newly made but unphotographed casing. I pulled off the rubber tip to make it easier. Give it a test run on your shelf to make sure you’re happy with the size.

7) Lather, rinse, repeat
Follow steps 2 through 4 for the 2nd curtain panel. BUT, before you hem the 2nd panel, you might wanna just slide it onto the rod alongside the 1st panel and mark where the hem should be. This way you’ll avoid ending up with two panels of different lengths, as I would have if I hadn’t checked. Sloppy! =P

THEN, complete step 5 for the 2nd panel.

8) Nip your thread tails, hang and admire!

Hooray! Clean as a whistle.

I actually got lazy and skipped the horsehair braid on the 2nd panel…and you can tell! Well, I can tell. Jimmy wouldn’t notice, but the 1st panel with the horsehair has a cleaner hem and hangs just ever so slightly straighter. So, using horsehair braid is optional but recommended!

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• How to add a zippered pocket to your handbag

Thought I’d take a crack at writing a tutorial for inserting a zippered pocket in a handmade bag. Until now, I’ve used the method shown in all the handbag-making books and home sewing patterns I have, as well as in all the incredibly helpful online tutorials I’ve found, including:

• SewPixie’s tutorial on Craftster
• U-handblog’s Sewing Zippers in Bags Tutorial

I’ve been perfectly happy with those techniques, but the result is that the zipper tape sits on top of the pocket fabric and is therefore visible if you peek inside to look…which most people probably never do. So, I changed the approach a bit so that instead of the visible zipper tape in the photo on the left, I get a hidden zipper tape as seen in the photo on the right. Yay!

I started thinking about it more when I saw the post over at Fashion Incubator for a Zippered Welt Pocket Tutorial. (Note: You’ll need to be an owner of Kathleen’s book in order to access the tutorial, but the book is well worth the investment if you’re planning to make a business out of designing and/or making sewn goods.) She’s got an approach to zipper insertion I hadn’t seen before in which she does this flipping inside-out trick with the zipper that would skip the step of laying the pocket fabric on top of the main fabric.

A little confused, but definitely intrigued, I planned to try it. But alas, the zippers that I needed to use were too short. Soooooo, here’s how I did it instead! Note: My material changes color because I snapped the photos across two different projects. Oops!

Materials:

• The piece of lining fabric that the zippered pocket will be on
• Zipper (mine is a 7-inch #3 sized zipper with metal teeth)
• Fabric for your pocket (mine is 9″ wide x 15.5″ high, for a finished pocket size of approximately 7″x7″)
• Strip of interfacing or contrasting fabric

Steps:

1) Center your interfacing or contrasting fabric over the spot where you want your pocket to be, right sides together. Draw a rectangle to mark the opening, and stitch along the border to reinforce the opening.

2) Cut a slit lengthwise down the middle of the rectangle, then cut two slits at 45-degree angles at each end

3) Push the interfacing through the slit you’ve made, and finger press it flat. The right-most photo is the view from the back.

4) Place the zipper along the bottom of your pocket fabric, wrong side of zipper to right side of fabric. You can baste the two pieces together to keep them in place. Center the zipper and pocket underneath the rectangular opening, and pin in place. The right-most photo shows the view from the back.

5) Using a zipper foot, stitch a straight seam along the bottom (or left, in these photos) of the rectangle. Backstitch to lock the seam at both ends.

6) Here comes the part where you get to bust out your origami skillz. Flip your material to the back and remove the pins. Fold the pocket fabric down and finger press (or iron) to flatten the fabric downwards, away from the zipper teeth. This is important because you don’t want the fabric to get stuck in the zipper. Now, fold the bottom of the pocket up so that the bottom seam now meets with the top of the upper half of the zipper tape. Flip your work around again, and pin in place.

7) Straight stitch around the 3 remaining sides of the rectangle, backstitching again to lock the seam at beginning and end.

8) Flip your work around again, stitch the left and right sides of the pocket together, and you’re done! My pocket has three seams along the top instead of just one. I had issues with my zipper foot. =[

Now you’ve got a zippered handbag pocket that looks just like the ones in store-bought bags - no zipper tape in sight!

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• DIY shelf curtains!

So I’ve been using my new Janome 1600P-DBX sewing machine for a couple of weeks now, and I still heart it big time! It ain’t no industrial, but the thing’s got power enough for me! Aside from the extra oomph and 1600 stitch per minute speed, one of my ABSOLUTE favorite things about this machine in terms of features is the automatic thread cutter. It saves soooo much time and is just cool to use. It pulls your needle thread down to the bottom of your work and nips both threads pretty close to the fabric. Love that.

The second runner up would probably be the simultaneous bobbin winding feature which, because it runs on its own little motor and offers a separate spool pin for bobbin thread, allows you to wind up a bobbin — at the touch of a button! — while continuing to sew your project.

The Janome 1600P-DBX doesn’t come with very many accessories out of the box, but in terms of what it does come with, my fave here would be the adjustable cloth guide. The guide is basically a giant version of the magnetic seam guide that I used to love using on my little Memory Craft Janome 4900QC, except that the cloth guide is way more stable since it screws into your machine.

Since the number of standard accessories the 1600P-DBX came with was so underwhelming, I went and bought myself a bunch of extra goodies. First I got me a bunch of extra feet:

…followed by an 18×24 inch extension table, followed by some more feet!

The only feet that came with the machine are the bottom two in the photo with the machine feet, and I bought the rest of them separately. Unfortunately, I’m having issues with my zipper feet. =/ I was really excited about the middle foot in particular because it looks like you could use that one single foot to stitch to either the left OR the right of it. But, I get loops on the underside of my project whenever I use all but one of them.

WAH! Gotta get back to The Sewing Machine Shop to have shop chief Dan look at it, but I’m not looking forward to dragging this machine along with me. This sucka’s HEAVY!

I tried the compensating foot with adjustable guide today (the middle foot in the middle row) and thought it was pretty darn cool, but I had a hard time getting the guide to go over the straps while top stitching around the top of the bag. Hm…

On a brighter note, the extension table is awesome! It’s perfect for working with the Big Lugs since those use such mongo pieces.

I kinda wish the machine came with an auto needle threader. The 1600P-DB version, which doesn’t have the auto thread cutter, does and I actually didn’t notice that the DBX didn’t until it came time to thread the needle. But, it has a reverse function and knee lift, both of which are key.

Jimmy thinks I should sell my 4900QC now that I’ve got the big boy, but he just doesn’t understand! The 1600P only goes forward and backward, straight up stitches, nothin else. And sometimes a girl just wants to get fancy, ya know? A little zig? A little zag? And maybe someday a few buttonholes! So I’m hanging on to her for sure.

So, the industrial machine that I’d originally had my sights set on will have to wait. I just knew we didn’t have the room, since the industrial sits in its own table, motor and all. But also, I couldn’t decide which one to get! I’d narrowed it down to a couple (a Juki and a Consew), but I wanted to test drive them first and could only find two places that carried used or new industrials locally and neither of them had the model I thought I wanted. Then, when I found out that the instructor of my most recent handbag sewing class  had a “professional” Bernina machine (stronger than a standard home machine but not as powerful as an industrial), I figured thought oughtta be good enough for me. And that’s how it happened!

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• Back in action

Something’s missing from this photo shoot indeed. It’s either a photographer, a model, or a remote control. I’m not sure which. Oh, and that’s not to mention focus, which of course is also missing from this blurry shot. I guess the camera auto-focused on my face, which I always end up cropping out anyway. What a waste!

And poor Big Lug! Look how cute that bag is, sittin’ pretty like that and everything while camera girl and model screw it all up. Ack! After 96 self-timed photos, I had to post something — blurry or not. So here we are:

I think we’ll take 5 before we go back to the drawing board.

And 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…

Aah. Photos of bags by themselves are SO much easier. Here’s the 2nd of three Big Lugs that will be posted to the Etsy shop by the end of this week. There’s one of these, and two of the olive-colored version in the first photo and the post below.

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• Lug by Lug
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• Back in action

Sloooowly but surely, Big Lugs are finally starting to make their way out of the studio!

This number above is made with one of my favorite fabrics — well practically all of my favorites are Echino, as you may have noticed! But I dig the color combos on this one in particular with the peach-colored bird flying amidst aqua, magenta and rose colored flowers, all set against a vivacious (that’s right, vivacious!) olive green background.

I used a wide wale corduroy (i.e. the kind with the fat stripes) for the top portion of the tote, as well as for the straps.

I had my three finished Lugs all set up for their photo shoots earlier this evening, but to my dismay the bulb in my Smith-Victor KT400 Umbrella Lighting Kit was busted…again! The bulb that came with the light was busted upon arrival. I’m sure this second one got banged around during the move. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it to Ritz Camera tomorrow to pick up a new one so I can take some photos of these babies, post them up to Etsy and notify my treasured mailing list members of their availability!

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• Back in action
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• Something’s missing from this photo shoot